


House of Cards

by Daydreamnation (orphan_account)



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Loosely based on Now You See Me, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Daydreamnation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark is part of a group of independent criminals recruited by an unknown organization to frame renowned millionaire Eduardo Saverin for leading a criminal organization. His task is to charm the target, win his trust, and get Eduardo to invest in a project that will link him to illicit activities. However, the situation is more complicated than Mark expected, and not everything is as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House of Cards

The first thing Mark does is steal a maintenance uniform to impersonate one of the personnel, which grants him quick entry to the corporate headquarters without any security issues. Once inside, his unassuming appearance lends him the invisibility needed to easily navigate the building without suspicion, and he locates the telecommunications closet within minutes. Way too easy, he thinks bitterly as he tugs absentmindedly on his cap. This is one of the more straightforward jobs he's taken, and it's painfully anticlimactic. He simply finds an Ethernet port and plugs his self-constructed minicomputer into the network, which starts to emit a wireless signal that enables him to remotely hack the corporate network from within the comfort of a nearby coffee shop.

After claiming one of the corner tables, he gets to work breaching the security measures. It takes him a surprisingly long time, and he's still working hours later when the owner of the café kicks him out after closing time with a sympathetic look and an apology. He stumbles his way outside and plops himself down on the dirty concrete of the sidewalk, one hand propping up the laptop as the other continues its motion across the keys without breaking rhythm. The sun has been down for a long while, leaving in its wake a biting autumn wind that Mark notices but emphatically ignores. As long as he can still feel his fingers and his average wpm doesn't fall more than ten below his usual hundred thirty five, he refuses to move from his spot until he's done.  
  
Sometime later, he feels a light tap on his shoulder and looks up briefly to see the café owner, who has just finished closing up the shop. She hands him a cup of steaming coffee. "You kind of look like you need it," she offers, smiling. Slightly annoyed at the interruption, he mumbles some words of gratitude before accepting the cup, settling it down next to himself and promptly forgetting about it seconds later after he resumes typing.  
  
By the time he's finished with the project, his coffee is completely cold and the streets are almost entirely deserted. Due to his complete lack of any self-preservation, he simply tucks his laptop under his arm in plain sight and begins walking home, numb fingers finally buried in the pocket of his hoodie. Halfway there, he decides to take a shortcut through a sketchy side street, since he's tired and irritated and just wants to get home as fast as possible. He usually makes his way through the street fairly quickly without much trouble, but his quota of good luck seems to have run out for the day and he finds himself in the path of two burly men wearing stereotypically predatory expressions.  
  
"You're blocking my way," he informs them obviously.  
  
The shorter of the two emits an obnoxious laugh that bounces off the walls of the alley and produces a harsh echo. He directs an incredulous expression at his accomplice.

"This smug little shit thinks he can walk through an alley holding a laptop and no one'll take it."  
  
The other man grins and turns to face Mark. "Hey, you're pretty lucky we're the ones who got to you first. Promise we won't even stab you if you just hand it over."  
  
"Look," Mark says, trying to save all of them from wasted time and unnecessary embarrassment. "You wouldn't be able to do anything with my computer once you have it. It's so heavily encrypted and modified that it would be completely useless to you and your shady craigslist customers anyway. I'd offer you my phone, but it's a Nokia flip phone and I've already dropped it in the toilet twice.  
  
The taller mugger snorts. "Yeah, right. Do we look stupid to you? Hand over the laptop, kid," he says, lazily pulling a knife out from his jacket to show Mark he's not messing around.  
  
Mark is stubborn but not stupid, so he turns around and tries to run, but years of crime have made the thugs much more physically capable than him, and while Mark himself is also admittedly a criminal, typing isn't exactly a strenuous cardiovascular workout. They catch up to him in a matter of seconds, one of them grabbing onto his hood and jerking it, choking him in the process. He ineffectively tries to push the man away with one hand, other arm curling protectively over his laptop.  
  
"Dude, just fucking stab him, grab it, and go," his partner shouts. "He's a mouthy little asshole anyway—"  
  
His threats are cut short by the loud sound of two gunshots. The grip on Mark's hood slackens immediately, and he turns around to see both criminals slumped on the ground, blood slowly pooling on the ground around their wounds. Stunned, he quickly scrambles away from the bodies, trying to figure out where the shots were fired from. He notices a figure on the fire escape enveloped by the shadows, but it's nearly impossible to make out any details in the dim lighting. The figure throws something at him, and he instinctively jumps out of the way before he realizes it's a small, seemingly harmless package. He tentatively opens it to find a small flash drive along with an ostentatiously gilded card displaying a simple address. Disconcerted, he glances back up, but the person has already vanished.

  
  
-

  
  
Once Mark arrives home, he promptly slips the flash drive into its slot and opens it up, clicking on the first folder in the list. What he sees makes his blood run cold. In the drive is a compilation of nearly all the cybercrimes he's committed since he was thirteen, along with copious amounts of evidence and all necessary proof needed to get him convicted of numerous felonies.  
  
He immediately recognizes the data for what it is: blackmail. He seethes in anger at the audacity of whoever gathered all this. He notices that the last file in the folder is a simple plain text document, and he fiercely clicks it open with his mouse. It consists of merely two words:  _Be there._ And yeah, he's definitely going to be there. He's going to go there to get some answers, and by the time he's done with the perpetrator, they'll wish they'd fucked with anyone else but him.

 

-

  
  
Google maps leads him to the doorstep of an ancient-looking tenement building in the lower east side, possibly built in the early nineteen hundreds. He notices it smells vaguely of mildew and aged wood as he climbs the creaky and precariously wobbly stairs to the third floor. When he arrives, he finds the door to the room slightly ajar and slowly pushes it open to find a group of four people, two guys and two girls, crowded around a large computer screen with papers haphazardly strewn all over the floor and tables.  
  
"What is this?" He demands.  
  
"Welcome to my birthday party!" Some redheaded guy announces, flinging his arms open in a dramatic gesture.  
  
"Shut up, Dustin." The other one, a blonde, smacks him on the back of his head lightly.  
  
"If I can't have a party, somebody should at least fetch me a slice of birthday cake before we resume our life of crime. Illicit activity is stressful," the one apparently called Dustin laments.  
  
"What am I doing here?" Mark asks sharply. He absolutely despises being in the dark and he's still angry that this situation is out of his control. He wants answers.  
  
One of the girls, glances up from where's she's typing on the computer. "Welcome to this big fucking mess," she says sardonically.  
  
"Someone is going to need to elaborate on that soon," he says pointedly, quickly losing whatever is left of his patience.  
  
She shrugs. "Essentially what we're doing is building a criminal network, and we need you to program a website," she tells him, which is utterly useless in its lack of specificity.  
  
"Fine. Okay. Let's start with the basics. Who exactly is responsible for all of this? Whatever 'this' refers to."  
  
The blonde guy shrugs. "None of us know. We're periodically sent information updates and instructions, but whoever executes this sends us data packages through mail, which is harder for us to trace than electronic messages. So far we have no idea if we're dealing with a man, woman, group, or large organization. For all we know, it could be some bored corporation-hating anarchist with a laptop. I'm Chris, by the way. Christy's at the computer, Erica is the one looking awfully bored, and Dustin is the loud one. I'm presuming you're Mark."  
  
"Finally. I like you. You seem to be the only one who understands the concept of exposition. By all means, please do keep up the progress,” Mark says as he walks over to a dusty, antiquated sofa with peeling leather and plops down on it, giving Chris an expectant look.  
  
"Where do I even—" Chris sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Well, to put it concisely, someone wants us to build a criminal network and establish subtle but potentially damning links to a businessman named Eduardo Saverin. You may have heard of him; he's pretty significant in the corporate world, and his wealth plus attractiveness leads to quite a lot of media attention. Basically, the point is to frame him for establishing organized crime, and before you ask, no, we have no idea what the motive is. We're guessing it's likely a business-related incentive, but it's difficult to rule out personal animosity."  
  
"Hold on," he says, glancing around the room incredulously. "Someone hired  _you guys_  to put together a crime network. Was their human resources department undergoing budget cuts?"  
  
Dustin throws him a grin. "You underestimate us, rookie. Christy here, for example, has blackmail on at least twenty prominent mafia and gang members, while Erica was practically raised by the mob. Chris kind of seems like an exemplary citizen, but he's frighteningly good at organizing and managing a criminal syndicate. And I'm basically just here for comedic relief."  
  
"You're here because you are sufficiently terrifying with a gun in hand," Chris remarks dryly.  
  
Dustin cocks his head to the side. "That sounds plausible. Chris got drunk this one time after one particular incident and tried to edit me onto the Improbable Aiming Skills TV tropes page."  
  
"Great. Fine. Congratulations and everything, but I'm not sure I understand what my role in all of this is."  
  
"We figure you're probably the last stage of the plan. Your objective is to design an innovative website that has the potential to draw in a substantial amount of users, get close to Saverin and make him interested in your project, then offer him what seems to be an unbelievable investment opportunity," Chris explains.  
  
"Well that seems oddly benevolent and completely irrelevant."  
  
"Obviously not," a new female voice, presumably Erica's, cuts in. "You're aware that websites can host illegal content under the pretense of running completely legitimate operations, right? Like sites that deceptively appear to just be popular shopping websites, but actually lead to illegal content such as child pornography if the user follows a predetermined digital path."  
  
"I'm aware of them, yes. Is that what I'm supposed to replicate?"  
  
"Something similar. We're going to make it seem like one of his tools for disseminating and exchanging information with the crime network, along with enabling blackmarket trades through the web."  
  
"Won't my involvement be fairly evident when the authorities inevitably decide to investigate the creator of the website after Saverin is implicated?"  
  
"I mean, no. You'll be dead," Erica says way too casually, like dying is the equivalent of getting a shitty haircut. Mark's pretty sure that any plans contingent on his demise automatically lose his approval.  
  
"That's unfortunate then, since dying is definitely not on my agenda. I can double check Google calendar for you, but I'm fairly certain it hasn't inexplicably appeared since I last looked."  
  
"Don't be obtuse," she glares. "You'll mysteriously disappear and we can make it look like Saverin ordered your death to prevent you from talking. It'll be very realistic and elaborate and we'll play Celine Dion at your funeral."  
  
"What makes you guys think I can convince Saverin to invest anyway?" It's something that genuinely puzzles him, because it's not like he has the best luck with beautiful, everlasting friendships, or even friendships at all, and he doesn't have the first clue how to befriend a random person—let alone a millionaire.  
  
" _We_  personally don't think anything, but the directives specifically requested you for this role, and I don't know what motive you have for agreeing to be dragged into this, but you had better succeed because the rest of us have things at stake as well." Erica's tone is sharp and aggressive, and Mark would be more intimidated if he actually experienced fear.  
  
"It would be ridiculous to presume that I can just walk up to a wealthy, attractive businessman on the street and expect to become his best friend forever, so someone needs to actually give me something to work with here."  
  
Erica looks over at Chris expectantly, and Mark gathers that he's the one responsible for most of the planning. "Based on the comprehensive information profile we were given on Saverin and the various personal details we managed to dig up, we decided that the approach with the greatest probability of success was probably, well, romantic manipulation. Apparently you are, inexplicably, exactly his type."  
  
"You want me to _seduce_ someone," Mark says, mildly horrified. "I change my mind. My confidence in my ability to make social acquaintances has suddenly skyrocketed in the past two seconds. We'll just become best buddies instead."  
  
Chris looks at him dubiously. "And how will you achieve that? Using your formidable social skills, delightful demeanor, and relentless attentiveness towards his well-being?"  
  
"Do I really seem that bad?" Mark sulks, but has to concede that Chris's skepticism holds some validity. He resigns himself to a future of awkward encounters and futile endeavors.  
  
Dustin starts cackling at him. "Soooo, Marky Mark. Tell me. Are you well versed in the art of seduction?"  
  
He throws Dustin a mean look. "Sadly, my trial subscription to Cosmo ended before I could fully master their expert techniques," he replies dryly.  
  
"Guys I'm not sure how  _this_ ," Christy makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses all of Mark's person, "is supposed to charm his way into the bed of GQ millionaire Eduardo Saverin. He kind of seems like a prickly kitten being deflead."  
  
Mark feels vaguely offended at that. "I think you'll find that I'm reasonably capable and can acquire a skill set that a significant portion of the population much less intelligent than me has learned to become proficient in."  
  
"Oh Mark,” Dustin says, hand twitching like he wants to reach out and pat him on the head. “I'm not sure someone can learn to be appealing by flipping open a manual and practicing for a few days.”  
  
"I  _have_  you know, had sex before," he feels the need to point out, cringing at the mild petulance he hears in his tone.  
  
"And how much effort exactly did you need to put into charming these people?"  
  
Mark blinks. "Well, I didn't—it just happened. But that should indicate I'm adequately appealing without having to resort to superfluous tactics, shouldn't it?"  
  
Dustin and Chris exchange a significant look. "Fine, pretend I'm Saverin," Dustin challenges. "I'm young and obscenely attractive, I run a multimillion dollar investment corporation, I probably wear suits to the grocery store, and my hair is like four dimensional. We're meeting for the first time at a charity function. What do you say to me to win my affections?"

Mark throws him an incredulous look. "Eduardo darling, shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" he deadpans.  
  
"You might want to tone down on the snarkiness when you talk to Saverin," Chris sighs in exasperation.  
  
"But I need him to love me for who I am," he says dryly.  
  
Out of nowhere, Erica slams both her palms on the table in agitation. "Look,  _Mark_ , here's what you're going to do. You're going to attend the charity gala Saverin will be at, wait until he's had enough wine to be immune to your stellar wit, then sit conspicuously close to him and look pretty. Twirl your fucking curls or something, I don't know, but you're going to make this work or I will  _carve_  death into your precious agenda with a newly sharpened blade."  
  
He blinks back at her evenly and opens his mouth to retort before closing it again, mouth set in a thin line. "Fine. I'll do it. But if this all goes to hell, just remember that I was unequivocally against it."

 

-

 

  
Come Sunday, Mark finds himself standing off to the corner of a lavish, ostentatiously decorated dining room, feeling slightly testy and suffocated by the suit he's been forced to wear and the close-toed shoes he's reluctantly jammed his feet into. His earpiece, which allows the rest of the team to communicate with him, is scratchy and uncomfortable in his ear, and he feels irrationally conscious of the hidden microphone in his shirt.  
  
He grudgingly scans the room for Saverin, who’s remarkably easy to locate since about a quarter of the room is either surreptitiously or blatantly staring at him unabashedly. They seem to be deterred from approaching him due to his present company however, since he's sitting with an elegant and classically stunning woman who’s leaning towards him in an extremely provocative manner, long wavy hair framing her face in an objectively attractive way. Assuming they're both deeply engaged in conversation, Mark calmly assesses the situation to determine an appropriate course of action, but after several minutes of closely observing them, he realizes that she's actually been monologuing the entire time, and that Eduardo been darting surreptitious glances at various exit points in a somewhat desperate fashion.

That's settled then. "I’m currently heading towards him," he mutters into the microphone, and receives a sound of affirmation from Chris. He walks purposefully over to their table and falters right as he reaches them, realizing he has no idea what to say. Awkwardly, he taps the woman on the shoulder with progressive urgency until she finally stops talking thirty seconds later and turns around to look up at him in irate confusion.

"I have important matters to discuss with him," Mark tells her bluntly without any preamble.  
  
Her brows furrow indignantly at the interruption and his flagrant rudeness. "Who are  _you_?" she asks scornfully, which—good question. Mark has no idea who he is supposed to be.  
  
"He's a business partner," Eduardo cuts in quickly. "I promised him we could discuss some contract negotiations tonight." Mark nods his assent and keeps from fidgeting with his tie, trying his best to look adequately professional.  
  
Accepting the excuse reluctantly, the woman nods and scribbles her number elegantly on the corner of one of the fancy dining napkin things, tucking it into Eduardo's suit pocket coquettishly. "Call me," she smiles brilliantly, and Mark feels satisfaction in the fact that Eduardo makes no promises to do so.  
  
As soon as she's out of earshot, he turns around to look at the other man. "You're welcome," Mark says preemptively.  
  
"Aren't you being a bit presumptuous? Suppose I was having an enthralling conversation with a charming woman who would one day be my wife," Eduardo questions. His mouth curves up slightly though, so Mark assumes he's being teased.  
  
"If you really want to spend the entirety of your marriage being talked at as your stare vacantly at a plate of salad while nodding at arbitrary intervals, you should probably thank me for helping you begin reevaluating some life choices," he says, which makes Eduardo laugh softly. Even his laugh is stupidly attractive, and once again Mark doubts his ability to pull this off. It's not that he lacks self-esteem or anything; he's just exceptionally pragmatic.  
  
"Really though, thank you for that. She literally just asked me if I thought she might be considered a profitable investment. I'm fairly certain she spent the entire conversation leading up to that line."  
  
"An extensive, themed pick up line. Classier than average, at least."  
  
The other man smiles and holds his hand to shake. "Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo's fine though."  
  
"Saverin?" Mark questions, feigning surprise. "I've heard a substantial amount about you."  
  
Eduardo looks a bit wary at the declaration. "And of course, everything you've heard is one hundred percent accurate," he says wryly.  
  
"So your mysterious disappearance a few months ago really was the result of an intracorporate conspiracy that led to your asassination? Congratulations on the speedy recovery, in that case. I'm not quite sure how you managed to find a way to get married to two different women and divorced from three others while deceased, but your ability to multitask is very inspiring."  
  
"Wow, did they really say that? You don't really strike me as the type of person who reads celebrity gossip."  
  
"I spend a lot of time on the web," Mark says, which isn't a lie, but also not why he has a few gigabytes worth of knowledge about Eduardo. "I acquire a lot of useless info that I can't automatically delete from my mind because I'm not, despite some convincing allegations, actually a robot."  
  
Eduardo looks slightly confused. "A robot?" he questions with a raised brow.  
  
"I'm apparently incapable of meeting a vaguely defined quota of human emotional display per week. Or at least that's the typical review I'm given right before getting dumped," he explains nonchalantly.  
  
"Mark!" Chris hisses in his ear, and Mark startles at the sound. He'd almost forgotten they were listening in. "You're supposed to convince him to like you, not warn him off!" he protests. Mark ignores him. Eduardo has yet to storm off in a fit of offended rage, which many people do within the first five minutes of talking to him, so he's counting that as a win.  
  
"That seems unfair," Eduardo replies. "You've shown an admirable amount of emotions so far, ranging from silent disdain to fairly vocal disdain," he says, grinning, and before Mark can decide if he's supposed to be offended or not, Eduardo reminds him, "You know, you haven't actually introduced yourself yet."  
  
"I'm Mark," he says.  
  
"Does Mark have a last name?" Eduardo asks amusedly.  
  
"I—Moskovitz," he says, throwing out the first name he thinks of after almost accidentally letting his real one slip.

Dustin snickers at him from his earpiece and croons, "Aww, Mark! I didn't know you felt this way about me! I'll pack our bags and we can head to Vegas first thing tomorrow morning." This is followed by a reprimanding thump and someone shushing Dustin from the other end.  
  
After that, Mark ends up talking to Eduardo for hours, chatting about everything from typical work-related small talk (during which Mark has to omit about 90% of the truth) to how idiotic Mark feels in his outfit and whether formal dress should be abolished in favor of oversized shirts and flip flops. A while into the conversation, Mark makes the miraculous discovery that he's capable of talking to someone for more than an hour without feeling the need to appropriate the nearest laptop and flee the room. Normally people regret initiating conversation with him because he's stubbornly fixated on talking about specific things he's preoccupied with and has little interest in listening to the sad story of someone else's life.  
  
Eduardo, though, actually listens like he's sincerely fascinated by what Mark has to say, even when he gets overly technical while discussing his ideas for an online networking site he's planning to create. There's something appealing about Eduardo's attentiveness and genuine enthusiasm, and Mark finds himself uncharacteristically interested when Eduardo starts sharing stories in return. He already knows the majority of Eduardo's life well enough to write an encyclopedia article from memory, but the stuff he knows doesn't include the ridiculous things he did in college, like carry around a chicken with him for a week as a bet and get slammed by animal rights activists after someone witnessed him accidentally feeding chicken to his chicken.  
  
As Eduardo is talking, Mark belatedly remembers that he should be coming up with ways to come across as appealing or whatever, since that was essentiallythe entire basis of this whole venture. His brain unhelpfully insists on supplying him with bizarre romantic comedy scenarios that he'd rather shoot himself in the foot than attempt to reenact.

 

Earlier that day, he’d sacrificed a small piece of dignity by going on a dating advice forum to solicit help, but he wasn't sure how to come up with a politically acceptable way to phrase "seduce someone in order to ultimately frame them as a crime lord" so instead he vaguely suggested he was a socially insignificant nobody who "needed to know how to attract a rich, charismatic business executive, someone like Cameron Winklevoss or Eduardo Saverin."

He was bewildered by the spectrum of responses, ranging from fashion tips and links to images of chest-flattering dresses, to self-righteous hate posts from _dancebaby361_  railing against the institution of social climbing. He remembers scoffing at some posts with dubious suggestions on how appearing charming and seductive, but he's seriously of out of ideas right now and anything would be better than just sitting there and becoming that one nerd Eduardo talked to at some party once and never saw ever again.

He does remember one tip that didn't seem entirely preposterous—something involving either "steamy eye contact" or "soulful gazing." Whatever, it’s not like anything could be worse than his innate social handicap anyway. He sets his mouth in a determined line and prepares to implement the tactic.

After staring intensely at Eduardo for a long moment and feeling utterly ridiculous while doing so, the other man breaks off in the middle of a sentence and looks at him worriedly. "Mark? Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?"  
  
"What?" Mark drops the expression and blinks.  
  
"It's just—You look kind of angry."  
  
"No, um. That's just my expression of deep concentration," he covers quickly, face heating up. That didn't go so well.  
  
"If you're sure," Eduardo says uncertainly, before continuing with his story about some girl who lit his bed on fire when he tried to gently turn her down.  
  
In return, Mark tells him about the time he hacked into Harvard's network to attain photos of the female students and used them to create a website that allowed users to rate their attractiveness.

"It was pretty successful,” he says, shrugging. “Overly successful, actually. The traffic crashed part of the network, and I got stuck with six months of academic probation. I also got stuck with the hatred of essentially every female on campus—absolutely no girl was willing to be seen with me, let alone date me, after that."  
  
Eduardo laughs at this and asks, "So what did you do for the rest of college?"  
  
Mark cocks his head to the side. "The guys were more amenable," he says casually, and feels a strange sense of satisfaction when Eduardo chokes on the glass of wine he's sipping, face looking a bit flushed. He's not sure what Eduardo's so worked up about though, since the information they gathered on him clearly reveals that he's done his own fair amount of experimenting in college.  
  
"That's uh—well, good for you," Eduardo remarks slightly awkwardly.  
  
"Is this problematic?" Mark questions curiously, tilting his head sideways.  
  
"Problema- No,  _no!_ ," Eduardo hastily clarifies, looking horrified by the suggestion. "It's not a problem at all—well, unless you don't—then I mean that might be slightly worse, but that is. No. It's not. Not a problem," he rambles, sounding uncharacteristically discomposed.  
  
"Um. Okay." Mark blinks at him, completely bewildered.  
  
"Let's just—I might need another glass of wine," he declares suddenly. He gets up and leaves, presumably to locate a tray of alcoholic beverages. Mark takes this opportunity to snatch some finger food from the nearby dessert table, picking the cake pop covered specks of red licorice he'd been eyeing earlier. He pops it into his mouth and starts sucking absentmindedly, thinking about possible page layout designs for Facebook. He distantly wonders if Eduardo was just making excuses and has actually abandoned the conversation, but dismisses the idea because the other man seems too polite to do such a thing. Soon enough, Eduardo returns to the table looking impeccably composed as always, dropping back down on the seat across from him with an inaudible exhale.  
  
"Sorry about th—" he cuts off as he looks back up at Mark and immediately turns red again. "Sorry about that," he repeats, sounding slightly strangled and deliberately looking everywhere except at Mark's mouth. He's acting a bit strangely, which makes Mark wonder if it’s because he’s had too much to drink—but no. There seems to be a direct correlation between Eduardo’s strange behavior and what Mark is doing to his food.

Is this a suggestive thing? It’s almost definitely a suggestive thing. Curiously, he pulls the cake pop in and out of his mouth slowly and subtly, watching closely for Eduardo’s reaction. Eduardo looks extremely engrossed in examining the tablecloth pattern as he talks about finance, despite showing no prior interest in restaurant decór. He occasionally darts glances at Mark and returns his gaze to the tablecloth, looking increasingly uncomfortable every time.  
  
Eduardo finally looks up when Mark is almost through with his dessert. He starts toying with his napkin, mouth slightly ajar like he’s trying to think of an appropriate way to phrase something.

“Well,” Eduardo begins slowly. “The event is probably going to end soon and I was wondering if you might like to, you know, come back to my place to continue talking,” he suggests, sounding like he’s trying too hard to appear nonchalant. Mark can’t believe that this assignment might actually end up being successful, if this is heading where he thinks it’s heading.

“Yeah, sure,” Mark says, shrugging in response, and Eduardo’s previous attempts to appear indifferent are ruined by the enormous grin that slowly appears across his face.

 

-

 

Mark doesn’t find it particularly surprising that they never actually end up getting to the whole talking part that Eduardo proposed.

“Fuck, Mark,” Eduardo says shakily, sounding wrecked.

“Yeah,” Mark agrees breathlessly as he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Eduardo’s chest.

 

-

  
Over the course of a few months, Mark ends up staying the night at Eduardo’s flat more often than not, which eventually graduates into staying at his flat in the morning, afternoon, and evening as well. It’s not something that happens intentionally. It’s just that Mark usually sleeps a lot less than Eduardo does, which means he sometimes feels the need to get up in the middle of the night to code, and once he gets really invested in his coding, nothing less severe than a category five hurricane can tear him away from the computer.  
  
Eduardo learns his lesson on this one morning when he tries to force-feed Mark some pancakes and gets his hand bitten for his efforts because he's inadvertently blocking the screen. It's not Mark’s fault that all his brainpower has been delegated to the virtual world and he has to rely on reflexes and primal instincts to navigate real life. Sometime later when he sees a bruise on Eduardo's hand, he grudgingly apologizes for it, but Eduardo just reassures him that it’s fine and he thinks it’s endearing, which convinces Mark there’s something wrong with him.

One side effect of Mark’s affinity for coding is that sometimes he’ll come out of his programming binge to realize that the sun has already gone down, and he’ll venture out of the room to find Eduardo already back from work, sitting in the living room lazily watching the weather channel or making dinner in the kitchen. Strangely enough, he never confronts Mark about his strange habits or makes any effort to get him to leave, which is how Mark ends up spending more time at Eduardo’s place than he does at his own apartment. More than half his clothes have ended up in a neat pile in one of the drawers, and sometimes when he runs out of things to wear, he simply appropriates a shirt from Eduardo’s closet.  
  
Tonight, Eduardo has succeeded in dragging Mark out for dinner by hiding his laptop out of reach. Well, Mark has figured out where it is, but it's literally out of reach height-wise and he refuses to sacrifice his dignity by climbing on a stool to reach it, so he's going along with it for now.  
  
They're sitting at a ridiculous candle-lit table at some extravagant restaurant, surrounded by numerous other tables with romantic couples. The place is overflowing with excess sentiment, which makes him feel like he's going to break out into hives. When he informs Eduardo of this particular allergy, all he gets is an eye roll and a small, indulgent smile in response.

"Do you already know what you want?" Eduardo asks when he notices Mark hasn't opened the menu.  
  
"I'll have number twelve," says Mark, who has no desire to embarrass himself trying to read the menu written entirely in French.  
  
Eduardo laughs quietly. "This isn't a takeout place, Mark. They don't number the dishes here."  
  
"The twelfth option on the list then," he stubbornly insists.

The waiter chooses this moment to come by, and Eduardo thankfully orders for both of them so Mark decides to hate him a little less.  
  
While waiting on their food, they engage in some small talk, which Mark ordinarily can’t stand but finds he doesn’t mind quite so much when it’s with Eduardo. A few minutes into the conversation, Mark notices there’s something different about Eduardo.

“Your hair,” he says suddenly when he figures it out, cutting Eduardo off mid-sentence. “It’s…fluffy.”

Eduardo runs his hand through it self-consciously. “Yeah, I ran out of hair gel,” he explains sheepishly. “After a meeting today, one shareholder actually came up to me and complimented me on my ‘modern new look’ and then gave me a short speech about the younger generation and innovative business concepts. And if that wasn’t awkward enough, later when I was at the supermarket, the woman behind the cash register stopped, stared, and went, ‘Hey, wait, you look familiar,’ and when I started to introduce myself, she interrupted and was like, ‘Are you in an indie band?’”

Mark snorts. Eduardo just looks baffled at the concept.

“I told her, ‘No, actually, I’m in business,’ and she was like ‘Sorry! Your face looks kind of familiar and you’re kind of rocking this artsy fringe.’ She actually called my hair an ‘artsy fringe.’ I don’t even know who I am anymore.

Mark thinks he should probably disabuse Eduardo of any notions about joining a boy band or something. “I'm not sure that even your hair and face could carry you to musical success if we were judging based on how you sound when you sing in the shower,” he informs him.

“Wow Mark, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Eduardo says dryly. “I’m glad I picked economics over pursuing an acapella career in college.”

“You’re welcome,” Mark says, absentmindedly stirring his glass of water with a spoon for no apparent reason.  
  
"So how’s Facebook coming along?" Eduardo asks after a lull in conversation.  
  
"It’s coming along great,” Mark says, lighting up a bit at the mention of his site. “I keep thinking of features to add and it has so much potential as a website and Wardo, I don’t think you understand how much—this is something that could help redefine social interaction, something that an entire generation—"

Mark stops suddenly, struck by how much he  _needs_ Eduardo to be part of this. Not as a way to implicate him, since that's so insignificant compared to the scope of what his website is ultimately capable of achieving, but as a part of his online networking revolution. He can't recall when he started to overlook the original function of Facebook, but it was always inevitable because he's not someone who can tolerate wasting time working on anything vaguely approaching mediocrity. If Mark is anything, it's ambitious, and the site has been rapidly outgrowing its original role even before its actual creation.

Eduardo has been there for the entire process, from when Facebook was just a hazy image of a blue profile layout tucked into the corner of Mark's mind, to when he crashed from exhaustion while coding the account preference options and fell asleep at the kitchen table, face-planting into his bowl of pasta. Eduardo has even offered various helpful suggestions regarding site logistics and has been unexpectedly helpful with coding algorithms, though his most significant contribution is probably the ostensibly self-replenishing supply of Red Bull in the fridge.

Something in Mark clenches at the idea of Eduardo unknowingly contributing to his own downfall, which is a new and completely unwarranted feeling. It's potentially problematic, because fuck, if he actually admits he  _likes_ Eduardo, that would be open up a whole Pandora's box of unwelcome complications and he really just wants to get this whole blackmail business over with so he can skip incarceration and go back to whatever he was doing before. Except—Mark is just too pragmatic to indulge in any form of denial, and he does like Eduardo, because really, who wouldn't? Eduardo is an incredibly likable person and there's apparently an entire online fan community that would attest to that.

The last time Mark actually remembered the relationship was supposed to be a pretense on his end was about a month ago, which is really just one month too long.

  
-

  
When Mark returns to the downtown apartment for a group meeting, the first thing he notices is the awful smell. Chris must have seen his disdainful expression, because he just shrugs. "The neighbors have zero cooking ability and the ventilation is awful. You get used to it."  
  
"Exactly how many safety violations does this building violate?" Mark asks, side-eyeing the patch of mold near the bathroom entrance.  
  
"This isn't even close to being one of the worst apartments in the city," Chris replies distractedly as he alternates between glaring in frustration at the computer and at his cellphone. "There’s this asshole that’s supposed to get in contact with me to finalize the gun-running operation but he's avoiding my messages.”  
  
Chris sounds chronically stressed, and Mark is awfully impressed by how competent he is at essentially managing the majority of the operation. He doesn’t understand how Chris takes on that many different responsibilities so smoothly and efficiently—all without sacrificing a significant portion of his sleep. In another life, maybe he could have worked for the president.

Mark looks up and suddenly notices that there's someone missing. "Where's Erica?" he asks.  
  
"Out making sure the subordinates are still being subordinate and everything is still functioning as it should be. Dustin would be out there with her, but his leg is still messed up."  
  
Dustin lifts up a crutch and waves it delightedly. "Hey Mark!"   
  
"What happened?" He eyes Dustin's cast, which is decorated all over with rhinestones, purple glitter, and a terribly drawn T-Rex with three eyes.  
  
"I was being chased and had to leap out of a window. It'll be fine, my limbs have gotten worse. I'm not very nice to them," he shrugs.  
  
"No, I mean, what happened to your cast? It's kind of atrocious. Were you jumping out the window of some craft store you raided?”

"Hilarious, Mark. Nah, I lost a bet with Christy."  
  
“It’s okay, I don't actually want to know."  
  
"Probably for the best," Christy adds.  
  
"How are things on your end, Mark? Anything you need to fill us in on?" Chris asks.  
  
"I’m done. I'm finished with the code. The site is going live tonight."  
  
Chris levels him with a look. "You're not looking particularly satisfied for someone who's essentially succeeded in accomplishing their goal" he says, sounding slightly concerned.  
  
"Yes, because everyone blackmailed into doing something is just ecstatic about carrying it out," he bites out.  
  
"Fair enough, Mark. But Facebook is your cherished brainchild and you'd feed it pureed carrots and cradle it to sleep if you could, so we just assumed you'd be a bit more enthusiastic about its debut," Dustin counters.  
  
Mark makes a small noise of frustration. "I don't see why we have to put up with this. All of this." He gestures vaguely around the room to encompass everything they've been working on. "It doesn't seem like Eduardo's done anything particularly horrible, except for maybe hide my laptop this one time, but that isn’t exactly a crime worthy of incarceration. I don't think he even knows how to piss anyone off and he's kind of ridiculously amicable. We’re talking about a man who buys treats for his secretary's puppy and apologizes for being in the way if you accidentally hit him in the face.”

Chris sighs. “This is unfortunately how it works when you deal in crime, Mark. Eventually it reaches a point where you’re so entrenched that you just do things for survival, and you have to go ahead and continue to redefine your morals over and over again until you’re not sure you have any left.”

“God, that’s really pessimistic,” Dustin says cheerfully.

Mark is silent, because Chris makes a valid point. What choice does he have? Unless he can think of an alternative, he’s stuck in a position where he has to do as he’s told to avoid unthinkable circumstances.

“Oh, I almost forgot to mention.” Chris says. “We’ve discovered that there’s something kind of…off about Erica—facts that just don’t sum up, explanations about her life that don’t particularly make sense. We’re not sure what’s going on, but keep your guard up, yeah?”

Mark nods, filing the information away for later. Nothing about anything makes much sense to him right now, so it probably won’t make much of a difference anyway.

 

-

 

It’s seven a.m. in the morning, and Mark checks the Facebook stats to see that the site is at 124,093 users. The figure is still climbing at a steadily increasing rate, and it’s only been half a month since the site has gone live. It makes him feel accomplished enough to resist tweaking with the code for now, but he can’t get himself to fall asleep despite being conscious for more than twenty hours since his sleeping pattern is so messed up.

On a random impulse, he decides to make breakfast, because why not? As a kid, he’d been in the kitchen countless times before, watching bleary-eyed as his mom cracked eggs into the flour. He’s never tried making pancakes himself, but it honestly can’t be that hard.

He regrets this assumption twenty minutes later when the half the floor and most of the kitchen counter are covered in flour and butter. While he’s staring at the mess, mystified by how something so simple could go so terribly wrong, he hears Eduardo’s alarm go off. He panics a little as he makes out the sound of Eduardo stumbling into the bathroom and turning on the shower, since he doesn’t want him to stumble into the kitchen later and be witness to Mark’s culinary incompetence.

Treading cautiously around the mess, he heads to the refrigerator and scans its contents to find a slice of cold pizza and a half-eaten bowl of pasta. He quickly pulls the pizza out of the fridge and drops it on a plate before sticking it in the microwave. As it’s heating, he finds an empty glass and fills it with orange juice. A loud beep notifies him that the pizza is done, and he grabs both the plate and glass, bringing them out to the living room and settling them on the coffee table so that Eduardo won’t have to go into the kitchen for breakfast.

Several minutes later, Eduardo wanders down the hallway, heading towards the kitchen when Mark suddenly flings himself in front of him. “Breakfast isn’t in there!” He declares a loudly, dragging a bewildered Eduardo away into the living room.

Eduardo stops and stares when he sees the plate of pizza sitting on the coffee table. “Pizza for breakfast. Really, Mark?” He says incredulously, obviously not quite sure what to make of this bizarre scenario. Mark just shrugs in response.

“Why is there flour in your hair?” Eduardo asks suddenly. Mark opens his mouth, closes it, then pretends he didn’t hear the question.

Eduardo narrows his eyes. “Hold on. Am I being kept out of the kitchen?” he says perceptively, stepping around Mark to make his way towards the aforementioned room. Mark would really prefer he not see the wreck that’s been made of the formerly spotless kitchen. At best, Eduardo would be amused at Mark’s expense; at worst, he’d slip on a raw egg and break his neck.

Just as Eduardo is a few feet away from the kitchen, Mark impulsively steps in front of him and wraps his arms around his neck, pulling him into a kiss while spinning them around so that Eduardo’s back is to the kitchen. He deliberately walks them backwards away from the direction of the mess, falling back onto the living room couch and dragging Eduardo down on top of him.

“Mark, I can’t.” Eduardo protests. “I’ll be—I’ll be late…for…my conference.” He’s doing a pretty poor job of being convincing in his objections however, because he’s sliding one hand under Mark’s shirt. It’s been five months and they haven’t even fucked on the couch yet. That’s a shame. They should set out to rectify that immediately.

In the end, Mark gets what he wants because Eduardo is remarkably terrible at denying him anything. Afterwards, he sprawls across the couch with his eyes closed, feeling boneless and blissfully fucked out as he listens absently to the sound of Eduardo cursing and muttering about nearly being late while rushing around the apartment to get ready for his meeting. Eduardo has forgotten about the kitchen incident already, which is perfect. Exactly what Mark was aiming for.

A while later, after Eduardo has already left for work, Mark figures he should probably go clean up or something. He gets up and accidentally kicks something while heading towards the kitchen. Frowning, he looks down to see a tiny blue USB drive. It’s Eduardo’s. Well, shit. Eduardo needs that, since it’s the drive that contains all his work data—presentations, spreadsheets, documents, and such.

He sighs and haphazardly throws on a hoodie before grabbing his car keys and heading out the door, not bothering to change into anything decent-looking. This is an oversight on his part, because when he gets to the company building and asks for Eduardo Saverin, the woman at the front desk just gives him an extremely incredulous look. He’d forgotten that he can’t normally just waltz into corporate offices since he’s so accustomed to immediate access under various disguises.

He holds up the blue flash drive. “Look. I’d like to get this to him with minimum difficulty, since he probably needs it within the next ten minutes. Can we make that happen?” He says shortly. The receptionist narrows her eyes at him, staring at his hoodie and jeans skeptically.

“And who would you be? Why should I trust that you somehow got hold of Mr. Saverin’s belongings?” Her tone is polite, but her expression clearly tells Mark to get out and stop wasting her time.

He’s starting to get impatient, since he clearly isn’t going to tell her that Eduardo forgot his USB at home because he was too busy fucking Mark on the couch. “That’s not important. Could you just call his secretary?” He says instead. “Please,” he adds belatedly.

She purses her lips a bit before giving in to his demands and picking up the phone. She spends several seconds talking to the secretary before turning back to Mark. “Joanne says that Mr. Saverin is not currently available, as he’s preparing for a meeting—“

“Yes. A meeting that will be notably lacking in pretty charts and statistical figures if he doesn’t have his flash drive, so can we rectify that?” He exhales in annoyance when she doesn’t look close to relenting, feeling slightly miffed when he suddenly remembers he can call Eduardo directly and skip all this bureaucratic idiocy.

The phone rings twice before Eduardo picks up, sounding slightly harried. “Mark?” he questions, surprised. “Did you need something?”

“I have your USB. You might want to send someone downstairs to get it, since no one is going to let me up.”

Eduardo lets out a small noise of happiness. “Yes! Thank you so much for bringing it! You are absolutely wonderful and I was literally looking everywhere for that. Hang on.”

A few minutes later the elevators open, and Eduardo himself comes hurrying out, lighting up immediately when he sees Mark.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know how much you despise the great outdoors, so thanks for bringing me this.” He takes the flash drive from Mark and drops a light kiss to his mouth. Mark wasn’t expecting that. Their relationship wasn’t public yet, but Eduardo had just kissed him in the middle of the enormous lobby.

“Professional setting, Wardo,” Mark says wryly, although he could really care less.

Eduardo quirks an eyebrow. “No one is going to reprimand me in my own company,” he says. “I’ll see you tonight. Get some sleep, Mark,” he demands as he leaves, disappearing behind closed elevator doors.

Mark isn’t even going to pretend he’s not a little smug about the baffled look on the receptionists face.

He makes his way across the expansive lobby on his way out, too busy typing strings of code onto his phone to look at where he’s headed. It inevitably leads to him bumping into someone and he mutters a quick sorry, expecting the other person to walk quickly around him. Instead, the person simply stands in front of him blocking his way.

Mark looks up from his phone and finds himself staring at one of the Winklevoss twins—the angrier looking one, whichever that is. Strange. He wasn’t aware that Eduardo was conducting business with them. Angry Winklevoss just watches him intently, giving him a long and oddly speculative look which borders on a little disturbing. Mark stares back blandly, until Angry Winklevoss finally breaks eye contact and steps around him, striding away purposefully.

Mark has no idea what just happened. If that was that a staring contest, then Mark definitely won.

 

-

 

That same night, as Eduardo is idly checking his phone in the kitchen while waiting for the moqueca to simmer, Mark wanders in with his laptop, site statistics, and a well-rehearsed list of reasons why it would be beneficial for Eduardo to invest in his site.

“Plus,” he continues. “At the rate our user count is climbing, the projected—”

“Mark,” Eduardo interrupts. “I didn’t get as far as I have by letting blatantly valuable opportunities slide. And it’s your site. You skip meals to code this thing, of course I would,” he says absently as he sprinkles seasoning into the stew. The scent permeates the kitchen and smells fantastic, like fresh herbs and spices.

That didn’t take much convincing at all. Mark is fairly certain it could be attributed to Eduardo’s competence as an investor, but he wonders what Eduardo would have said if he’d made the same offer before his site went live and the user count was still at zero. He probably would have said the same thing. He’s had a ridiculous amount of faith in Mark since the very beginning, and Mark can’t tell if that’s because he recognizes ability or if he’s just extremely loyal.

When the stew is gone, Eduardo takes it off the stove and turns off the fire, serving the dish with steamed rice.

“This is good,” Mark comments as he takes the first bite.

“Really? I didn’t think you’d notice,” Eduardo replies casually. Mark can’t tell if he’s being passive aggressive or not.

“What?” Mark blinks.

“You basically eat anything put out in front of you, provided it vaguely resembles food.”

“Wardo, I’m not oblivious enough to miss the five star meals you prepare every so often. It’s—they’re good. So. Thank you,” he says a bit awkwardly. He’s been told that he’s not very good at demonstrating appreciation, or recognizing when to express it. For some reason, Eduardo doesn’t seem to mind all that much.

“You’re very welcome,” he returns, eyes crinkling slightly at the corners, and Mark is left slightly perplexed by Eduardo’s general existence; he’s extremely intelligent, has great culinary skills, is loaded, and is patient enough to deal with Mark. If perfection could be quantified, Eduardo would be multiple standard deviations above the mean. Being with someone like Eduardo should make Mark feel at least a little self-satisfied, but it just makes him feel a bit unsettled, like something is wrong with the whole picture.

It’s not a very nice feeling.

 

-

 

Mark stirs in the middle of the night, a little surprised when he rolls over and finds the other side of the bed empty. He isn’t normally a light sleeper, but these days he’s been sleeping more hours than usual, which for some reason makes him wake up intermittently.

Curious about where Eduardo has gone, he lightly pads into the hallway, halting when he hears Eduardo talking quietly into his phone. What is he doing up so late? It’s unlikely that he would be taking any business-related calls this late at night. He inches closer so that he can make out what Eduardo is saying, hidden from view in the large shadow cast by the grandfather clock.

“Yes, we have their attention now,” Eduardo is saying.

“—the Jersey deal. We printed their symbol on the bullets. Yes. Tyler came to me today.”

“They’ll do a background check soon.”

“It’ll be sufficient. We’ll have the site by then as well.”

“No, that’s not—It’s just a matter of time before we get an invitation.”

“I won’t mess this up. Of course. Okay, bye.”

Mark isn’t sure what he just listened to, but that definitely wasn’t a normal business interaction—not for the CEO of an investment company, anyway. Maybe Eduardo is more involved in everything than he’d first suspected. Was his initial judgment of Eduardo wrong, or did he simply misunderstand the conversation because the entire situation has been making him agitated and increasingly paranoid?

Quickly, before Eduardo can come out into the hallway and catch him lurking, he quietly makes his way back to bed and feigns sleep, hoping the rapid thud of his heartbeat doesn’t give him away.

Moments later, he hears Eduardo slip into the room softly, hovering silently over the bed without climbing in. There’s a long, tense moment when Mark is afraid he’s been found out. He desperately wants to open his eyes to see what Eduardo is doing but obviously can’t. Instead, he does his best to avoid tensing up despite feeling twitchy and agitated, fighting to keep his limbs loose and relaxed.

Eduardo still hasn’t moved yet. He stands there, stationary and silent. Then, suddenly, Mark hears a rustle and senses Eduardo closing in on him. He reacts by stiffening just slightly, prepared for almost anything considering the weird circumstances. It occurs to him after overhearing that conversation that if he’s being dishonest with Eduardo in this entire situation, it stands to reason Eduardo could be playing the same game, maybe even with a better understanding of the rules and game board.

Whatever he was expecting though, it doesn’t come. Instead, he feels the lightest graze of a knuckle trailing across his cheekbones and down his face, lingering softly at the corner of his mouth. And that’s it. After that—nothing. Eduardo just climbs back into bed gently and subtly, as if nothing had happened. Mark isn’t sure what to make of that. While still pretending to be asleep, he rolls over so that his ear is pressed to Eduardo’s chest, listening as the quicker-than-normal thuds gradually slow down to a resting rhythm and eventually descend into to a more sluggish, sleeping pattern.

When he’s finally convinced that Eduardo is truly asleep, he reaches over and grabs the phone sitting on the dresser, scrolling quickly through the recent calls. There are a bunch of incoming calls from a restricted number, and the most recent outgoing call is to someone with the suspiciously nondescript name of Frank Jones. He doubts that that’s the person’s actual name. Frowning, he glances through the rest of the list, wondering which of those contacts are actually authentic and which are established guises for whatever Eduardo is apparently involved in.

Eduardo shifts slightly and Mark freezes before frowning and shutting the phone, placing it back exactly as it was. He cautiously rearranges himself back on the bed and reassumes his curled position against Eduardo’s chest, falling asleep with too many thoughts swimming in his mind.

 

-

 

Facebook is starting to grow too quickly for Mark to handle, and it gets to the point where he needs interns to help with its production. While Dustin was temporarily incapacitated and couldn’t run around shaking his fists at incompetent minions or whatever it was he did, he learned to code in a week and began helping Mark out with the site. Now, though, two people aren’t enough and Mark can’t exactly just hire people without coming clean about the covert purpose of the site.

However, he also knows that if his site remains stagnant in its content and doesn’t adapt, it’ll eventually descend into irrelevance. The choice is essentially between preserving his website and following through with the plan, which isn’t even a difficult decision, really. If he complies with the directives, eventually the site will be shut down due to criminal content once Eduardo is incriminated, which is an undesirable scenario.

Of course, Eduardo’s incarceration itself is an unwanted outcome, since Mark has finally admitted to himself that Eduardo is no longer a person he can live without. While Eduardo was away for a business trip to Singapore one week, Mark ate a sad total of five meals and Eduardo found himself unable to fall sleep without the background pitter-patter of Mark’s laptop keys, which are both fairly telltale signs of the codependency that developed while neither was paying attention.

Mark doesn’t even care whether or not Eduardo is guilty of criminal behavior anymore, because it’s not like Mark himself is the epitome of morality, and the idea of suddenly losing Eduardo has been becoming more and more intolerable.

Eventually, he makes the decision to inform the team about his shift in perspective.

“Just one month,” Mark tells them when he gets to the apartment. “Give me one month and I’ll sort everything out,” he promises. “I can figure out who we’re dealing with, extricate ourselves from their coercion, and make sure no one is presumptuous enough to blackmail us ever again. Trust me with this.”

“One month.” Chris agrees. “I dislike having my freewill impinged upon by invisible authorities, but we can’t just ignore the blackmail they have on us. I’m willing to take the risk of delaying the plan for a while, but if you can’t find a way to circumvent the issue we’re going to have to go ahead with it. And you can’t inform Eduardo in the meantime, or there’s no going back.”

“I’m with Chris on this one,” Christy says, shrugging.

“Same,” Dustin says.

Erica has an unreadable expression on her face. She’s silent, thinking. “I suppose.” She says slowly. Mark’s not sure what the cause of her hesitancy is, but he doesn’t care because he isn’t seeking permission. He’s just informing them of his decisions out of courtesy.

There’s also no way Mark is going to abide by Chris’s stipulation of not informing Eduardo. Eduardo’s involvement in this scheme probably runs steeper than they’re aware of, and piecing together this puzzle might be nearly impossible without Eduardo’s input. Mark has essentially decided that he’s on Eduardo’s side no matter what anyway, so telling him is probably the most reasonable course of action.

He’s not sure when the most appropriate time to tell a significant other that you’ve been plotting their imprisonment would be however, so he sort of just blurts it out during dinner.

“Wardo, I have something to tell you.”

Eduardo looks up from his food and stares back at him questioningly.

“I haven’t been honest about my intentions,” Mark says frankly.

“Intentions.” Eduardo repeats, in a somewhat undecipherable tone that’s less apprehensive than Mark expected. He sort of imagined Eduardo would respond with mild abrasion or the beginnings of anger, since Eduardo is usually very emotional and quick-tempered. Instead, he sounds somewhat unsurprised, as if he’s anticipated hearing this from Mark.

“Our initial meeting wasn’t as coincidental as you probably thought, and our relationship was founded on deceitful premises on my end,” he begins.

Eduardo stares back at him but doesn’t say anything, expression closed-off and unreadable, so Mark presses on.

“There are a team of us, and we were—”

“Hold on,” Eduardo interrupts suddenly. “Sorry, my phone is vibrating. I have to take this call,” he says, patting his back pocket. Mark is fairly certain Eduardo’s mobile was left on the coffee table in the living room but he doesn’t say anything.

Eduardo quickly retreats from the dining room, disappearing out of sight. Mark suddenly notices how tense his own shoulders are, and realizes he’s somewhat relieved by Eduardo’s sudden departure since he wasn’t sure how to frame the situation in the least harmful manner. He’s also perplexed by Eduardo’s retreat, since he knows Eduardo realized that the conversation was important and he’s aware that there was definitely no phone call.

He doesn’t know if Eduardo is simply angry that Mark betrayed his trust, or if he’s trying to avoid the conversation in some other capacity. He decides to wait for Eduardo to come back, but Eduardo doesn’t. Mark hears the apartment door open and then slam shut, which makes him guess that Eduardo just suddenly left.

Mark is at a loss for what to do so he just finishes his dinner instead, hands feeling unsteady as he brings the spoon to his mouth. Ten minutes later, he receives two texts from Eduardo, his phone pinging in rapid succession.

_sorry, work thing. don’t wait up for me._

_night_

Then, a few seconds afterwards, another text.

_love you_

Mark doesn’t get much sleep that night. He thinks and reflects and conjectures and predicts until all the facts he knows are true merely form a jumbled mess in his mind and his brain is fuzzy from overuse. His mind slowly starts shutting down, and he eventually reaches the state where he’s at the cusp of sleep and his rational thoughts slowly start acquiring a surreal quality.

It’s at this point that he barely registers the door opening and Eduardo walking in softly.

“Mark,” he hears.

“Wrdo?” He mumbles back, not sure whether he’s dreaming or not.

“Mark, I’m so sorry,” Eduardo says, and Mark feels a light jab at his neck before hazy, pixelated images degenerate into black and he unwillingly submits to the darkness.

 

-

 

When Mark wakes up disoriented, the first thing he notices is his restricted movement. For a split second he recognizes the feeling as sleep paralysis and a wave of fear washes over him since he hates the familiar sensation of being helpless yet very much awake. The panic subsides, however, to be replaced by confusion when he realizes he can still clench and unclench his fists and that he’s no longer sleeping in his bed.

He realizes he’s bound to some sort of chair and opens his eyes groggily, head throbbing a little. He freezes when his vision clears and he sees Eduardo standing in front of him, holding a gun. A gun which is aimed directly at the point between Mark’s eyes. He opens his mouth to speak but finds that can’t even begin to formulate a question and closes it again, pressing his lips together stubbornly.

He looks around at his surroundings and determines that he’s in a derelict warehouse, encircled by numerous criminals of varying ranks. The ones that stand out the most, however, are Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and he finds himself a lot less surprised by this than he should be. They’re standing off the right, shoulder to shoulder, posturing identically with arms crossed. A group of four armed men stand behind them, looking blank yet severe.

“Saverin.” One of the twins says tightly.

Eduardo hesitantly lifts his head up to stare Mark in the eyes. Eduardo’s expression conveys an apology, but his arm doesn’t even shake. For the first time in his life, Mark is acutely aware of his own mortality.

“It’s symbolic,” Eduardo says to Mark ruefully. “A declaration of loyalty. Evidence that my loyalty to this organization surpasses existing emotional connections.” He pauses. “This wasn’t my choice though. Not this. I didn’t want this,” he says, voice cracking a bit at the last word.

A thousand thoughts are running through Mark’s mind, but there’s only one he accidentally blurts out. “Your last text. Why did you send me that text.” It’s not really a question. It’s an accusation and Mark doesn’t really want an answer. He despises the way his tone wavers involuntarily, wishing he didn’t say something so inane.

But Eduardo falters. Mark can see it in the way his eyes flicker away momentarily and return looking just slightly more reflective.

“Mark…” he says, sounding just a little lost.

“If I’m going to die, my only request is that you don’t let any idiots get their hands on my website. At least find competent interns. Hold a hacking competition. Make it work.”

Eduardo lets out a strangled sound that can’t decide whether it wants to be a sob or a laugh. “You and your website,” he says, almost too fondly for someone who’s about to kill him. Mark has no sympathy for him; he has no right to feel upset, since he’s responsible for this mess in the first place.

“Do it.” One of the twins orders, his patience having evidently expired.

Mark shuts his eyes and waits.

A sharp, loud noise permeates the silent warehouse.

Oddly enough, Mark doesn’t feel any pain.

Cautiously, he opens his eyes to see that the noise was a result of the door being viciously kicked in. They’re suddenly surrounded by an entire squad of FBI officers.

He watches in a strange sort of detached and disbelieving way as words are exchanged, barely even blinking when the first shots are fired. Eduardo is suddenly by his side, undoing the ropes urgently and steering him away from the turmoil. He’s not sure if going with Eduardo is the right thing to do. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, and he resists half-heartedly.

“Mark!” Eduardo shouts, gripping him by the arm tightly. “Trust me,” he adds softly. He looks troubled. Sincere.

Mark reluctantly lets Eduardo guide him away.

They sprint silently through several corridors and up several flights of stairs before finally making their way out through a back exit. Eduardo takes him through a gigantic yard filled with empty packing crates, and eventually they reach a large group of people standing by a car. He recognizes one of them.

“Erica.” He says, surprised.

“Erica Albright,” she says wryly, extending out her hand. “FBI agent.”

“You’re—“

“Eduardo’s partner.”

Mark stops and turns around to stare at Eduardo, who’s staring fixedly at a splintered wooden crate to avoid his gaze.

“I need a beer,” Mark declares loudly.

 

-

 

Mark sits in an office at FBI headquarters, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands. It’s not a beer, but it’s all they have and it’s somewhat satisfactory.

“An exclusive league for crime lords.” Mark repeats incredulously. “Led by the Winklevii. And I thought they were insufferable enough in university when all they did was row crew.”

Eduardo’s supervisor, Gretchen, professionally refrains from rolling her eyes at Mark’s flippancy and continues.

“Agents Saverin and Albright were assigned to the case in different roles. Saverin was to expose the organization by pretending to seek membership, and Albright was to help him build a convincing background so that the Winklevosses would view him as a legitimate and qualified candidate.”

“And we were recruited to create a cover for Eduardo,” Mark presumes. “Erica was in place to monitor us.”

“Correct.” She says, leaning back in her chair with a self-satisfied air.

“Why did you decide to recruit us and why was all this secrecy necessary? The entire arrangement seems more convoluted than it had to be.”

“Using real criminals to establish a cover involved more complex planning, but it increased the credibility of the lie and decreased our chances of discovery. As for why we didn’t simply inform you of the real goal, it was primarily because we rationalized that it’d be less risky if fewer people knew the truth. Also, we required efficiency. Would you have been as effective at accomplishing your task if you knew you were being employed by a government agency?”

Mark just shrugs blankly, having zoned out in the middle of her explanation. Instead, he’s mentally revisiting his moments with Eduardo, reorganizing each moment they shared in the context of the truth.

Eduardo was a spectacular actor. Never once did Mark get the impression that Eduardo was anything less than absolutely infatuated with him. The idea that Eduardo performing some sort of role with Mark bothers him more than he’s willing to admit, which is a feeling that’s completely irrational in its hypocrisy. Mark isn’t exactly navigating the moral high ground, so he has no legitimate justification for his resentment, but he’s bitter regardless.

He would also rather not wait for Eduardo to initiate an awkward conversation about the status of their fake relationship, so he decides he should probably move his belongings out soon when Eduardo isn’t home.

That night, he decides to return to his own apartment—the one he hasn’t frequented in months. When he gets there, it feels more vacant than he remembers it being, and he’s not entirely sure it’s solely because of minimal furnishings.

 

-

 

Mark is at a bar, and he is very, very, spectacularly drunk.

He has no idea how many shots he’s had, but it’s definitely enough so that his weak pushing against the body currently caging him against the wall is sloppy and ineffective. He mumbles a bunch of words that are meant to be verbal protests, but either these words are lost amidst background noise, or the person pressed against him hears them just doesn’t care.

Either way, he can vaguely tell that this is heading in an unpleasant direction, but before it can escalate further, the other body is forcefully pried away from him, and there is some shouting that follows.

“Mark? Are you okay?” he hears a voice ask. Oh. Dustin. Oh, right. He brought Dustin. Dustin looks concerned.

“Nothing…not a thing is okay. Nothing is okay.” Mark says sullenly.

Dustin sighs. “Let’s get you home, Mark.”

“Home,” Mark repeats, frowning.

“Where’s home?” Dustin asks. “You’ve gotta help me out here, Mark.”

“Home…Wardo…” he mumbles in response, sliding his back down the wall and crumpling onto the floor. Going home would be nice. He misses Wardo.

Dustin sighs again and pulls Mark’s phone out of his pocket and scrolls through his contacts before selecting a number.

“Is this Eduardo?” Dustin says a moment later. “Yeah, could you come and collect Mark? He’s incredibly drunk and you might want to drag him home before someone tries to take advantage of him. Again.”

“No, no. Uh, he’s fine. There was some creep hanging onto him earlier, but he’s not—oh good, can you really? That would be fantastic.”

“Wait, you mean you guys aren’t living—”

“—Oh. Wow, awkward. Okay, well, that might explain this whole drunken misadventure. Nevermind, sorry, I didn’t—”

“Oh. Okay, then. Yeah, it’s the one at the corner of 30th and Madison. Bright blue sign. See you soon. Bye.”

About twenty minutes later, Eduardo weaves through the crowd to where they’re crouching against the wall, looking anxious and overly fretful.

“Christ, Mark!” Eduardo exclaims when he sees him.

“No, no, no. Not Chris. This is Dustin,” Mark corrects, jabbing a finger at Dustin emphatically. “Say hi, Dustin.” Mark demands.

“Wow, you were not exaggerating about his state of inebriation,” Eduardo says incredulously.

“Yeah, no shit. Nice to finally meet you by the way. As Mark has been forcefully declaring, I’m Dustin. Sorry for plotting to throw you in jail back when we didn’t know that we weren’t actually plotting to throw you in jail. Nothing personal.” Dustin shrugs with a careless grin.

“Half-assed apology accepted. It’s nice to meet you, too.” Eduardo says, sounding amused. “I should probably take Mark back to my place before he passes out though” he says turning to Mark, who’s making grabby motions at him.

“Waaardo,” Mark slurs, trying to lift himself off the floor before collapsing repeatedly.

Eduardo just gives a long-suffering sigh and tugs him up gently, supporting him with an arm around the waist.

Eduardo hauls Mark back to his own apartment and Mark stumbles over to the living room couch, curling up on it burying his face in the cushions. He’s missed this couch.

Eduardo comes padding back into the room a moment later with a blanket, laying it delicately over Mark’s slumped form. As Eduardo moves to pull away, Mark grabs him by the wrist to tug him back in.

“Wardo. I need. I need…” Mark trails off softly and yawns.

“What do you need?” Eduardo asks, sounding concerned. “Do you want a glass of water?”

“…you,” Mark thinks, but he forgets to verbalize this before he’s already fallen asleep.

 

-

 

A week later, they still haven’t talked since the drunk incident. Mark can’t even remember the majority of what happened that night. All he knows is that he woke up in Eduardo’s flat with a raging hangover while Eduardo was asleep and just booked it out of there without asking any questions.

He hopes he didn’t do anything idiotic, and if he did at least he doesn’t remember it.

Sometimes when he’s taking a break from coding, he finds himself just staring at Eduardo’s name in his contacts list, thinking about all the things he could message him to ask—like whether he’s ever thought about dating Mark genuinely, whether he thinks the new Facebook side menu looks neat or tacky, things like that.

There was a period in their relationship when Eduardo grew concerned with Mark’s sleeping habits and tried to use sex as an incentive to get him to go to bed afterwards. It was kind of an ingenious system, but now Mark’s sleeping patterns have regressed back to their original disordered state, and he wonders if Eduardo would care if he knew. He wonders a lot of things about the non-relationship they had.

While he’s microwaving some Easy Mac for dinner, he hears a loud banging on his door. Frowning, he goes to open the door and finds himself face to face with Erica, who looks extremely irritated at life.

She shoves past him angrily and plants herself down on his sofa, staring him down.

“I can’t deal with this anymore,” she declares. “You and Eduardo need to get your shit together, because his excessive misery is difficult to bear and is ruining my otherwise satisfactory life.”

“There’s no shit we need to get together,” Mark argues. “It was a farce on both ends. That’s it, the end. Also, how does this even impact you? He left the bureau, so he’s not your partner anymore.”

“There’s this thing called friendship, Mark. It can generally exist between two people who are not working with each other. And, I can’t speak for you, but if you think it was entirely pretend on Eduardo’s end, you are an idiot.”

Mark presses his mouth into a thin line. “I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with this, but it’s not working.”

“For once in your life, could you not be a stubborn asshole? Just talk to Eduardo. And try to be sober this time.”

“Eduardo isn’t interested in talking, otherwise he would have contacted me” he insists.

“Oh my god. You two are ridiculously unreasonable. It literally took me and Christy two glasses of wine and thirty fucking minutes to sort out the same thing you two have been agonizing over for a month. Although she did threaten to light my house on fire at first, but we got past that.”

That’s weird. He had no idea Erica and Christy were even a thing, and he says as much.

“Your obliviousness is incredibly unsurprising as this point, especially since Eduardo spent the better part of the year trailing after you with puppy eyes and you _still aren’t convinced he liked you_.”

“Eduardo was doing his job.”

Erica throws her hands up in frustration. “Talking to you is like talking to a willfully ignorant wall. Just sort out your shit. I’m leaving.”

“Okay,” Mark says insincerely as he stirs his Easy Mac. Erica rolls her eyes and shuts the door forcefully on her way out.

About two hours later, he gets a text from Eduardo.

_jfc mark, easy mac is not dinner_

He doesn’t know what to make of that. He has too many reactions, so he just sets his phone aside and continues to code. He’ll get back to it later.

Fifteen minutes later, there’s a knock of his door. He strides over to the door and opens it curiously, almost expecting it to be Eduardo. Instead, he’s greeted by a vaguely disgruntled looking delivery guy carrying a large box of takeout.

“I didn’t order anything,” Mark informs him in confusion.

The delivery guy shrugs. “It was paid for,” he says. “Is this your number?” He asks, holding out a piece of paper that does indeed contain Mark’s number. Then suddenly, Mark gets it. Eduardo is meddling.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll just…” He goes and grabs his wallet, tipping the delivery guy and taking the box of food from him. It’s Thai, which Eduardo knows he likes. Thoughtful.

He wonders what the gesture means exactly, and why Eduardo is going out of his way to demonstrate concern.

 

-

 

Eduardo doesn’t stop texting him after that. He sends sporadic messages reminding Mark how to function like a normal human being, but their interactions never progress beyond that. They never evolve into serious conversation, and Mark doesn’t want to bring up any issues in case Eduardo stops texting all together.

It goes on like this for a week, until Mark is unexpectedly caught on camera with Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster, in a supposedly compromising position. He met Sean at a party, and while Mark himself was the founder of a website worth billions, a part of him was still the same teenager who illogically idolized _the_ Sean Parker. They talked for a while, and by the end of the night, Sean was so drunk that he had to lean onto Mark for balance. Mark, who had not been expecting that move, stumbled and toppled over, Sean sprawling all over him on the floor.

Mark lifted himself up, causing Sean’s head to fall from Mark’s chest onto his lap. Mark stared down at him, perplexed—and that was the photo the tabloids snapped and published. Instead of looking baffled, however, the angle and lighting of the photo made him look attentive and affectionate.

Eduardo stops messaging him for a while.

 

-

 

Days later, Mark comes home to find a flash drive on his kitchen table—a blue one. He recognizes it immediately as Eduardo’s.

Plugging it into his laptop, he opens the drive to find that all of Eduardo’s work documents have been erased, and instead there’s just one single text file. He clicks on it to find a set of coordinates and a time, followed by just two words. _Go up_ , it reads. The symbolism of the situation is not lost on him; he has no idea what exactly it means, but the parallelism is clearly deliberate.

Inputing the coordinates into a navigator, he follows the route and arrives at a tall, abandoned building. The main stairs are blocked off, and the only way up is through the fire escape. The building is about ten stories high, and the fire escape looks precariously worn. He’s fairly certain Eduardo isn’t upset at him enough that he’d want Mark to plummet to his death though, so he tentatively starts to climb.

“For fucks sake, you couldn’t have found us a coffee shop or something?” he says as he reaches the roof and spots Eduardo dangling over the ledge of the building.

Eduardo turns around to face him. “I figured this way if we ended up shouting at each other, we’d just be two lunatics screaming on a rooftop rather than two public figures having a go at each other in a cafe. And the view is fantastic.”

Mark shrugs and settles down next to Eduardo on the ledge. “So you were anticipating a screaming match then?”

“Not necessarily. Just taking precautions.”

“I presume we’re going to be talking about our non-relationship,” Mark says as casually as he can manage.

“Do you really think of it as a non-relationship?” Eduardo turns to look at him, watching Mark’s expression carefully.

“How else would you classify a relationship sustained by mutual deception and roleplaying?”

“Can it still be considered a non-relationship after reaching such extreme levels of emotional codependency though? That should at least bring it up to pseudo-relationship level. And the fantastic sex and regular dates should bring it up to the stubbornly-refusing-to-call-it-a-relationship-type-relationship level.”

“Emotional codependency doesn’t make a relationship though, especially not if it’s circumstantially forced.”

“Okay, first of all, my mission directives did not require that I _fall in love with you_. And second of all, I doubt any authority in the world could make Mark Zuckerberg feel something he doesn’t want to feel.”

Mark is silent for a while, staring fixatedly at the lighting rod on top of the Chrysler building. “That text you sent me. The night that, you know. That was the first time you said it.” He looks back at Eduardo. “Did you mean it?”

“Did I—Mark, are you serious right now?” He says, rubbing a hand over his face.

“You know what’s funny?” Eduardo continues. “When you came up to me that first time at the charity function, I had no idea who you were. The physical description I was given of you was incredibly vague, to the extent where you could have been a third of the people in that room. But I thought you were amazing even before you introduced yourself, and when you did, I figured that there was no way I could make it out of a potential relationship emotionally uninvested. I never stood a chance with you, Mark.”

The conversation seems to be heading in a promising direction, so Mark figures it’s okay to lie down with his back on the ledge, placing his head on Eduardo’s lap. Eduardo starts absentmindedly playing with his curls.

It feels very comfortable and familiar, and the breeze is nice and cool. Mark is just about to doze off when—“Mark, what’s going on with Sean Parker?” Eduardo asks suddenly, hand stilling in his hair.

“Sean is only tolerable in small doses,” Mark comments grumpily, a little annoyed that Eduardo stopped stroking his hair. “And there’s nothing happening between us.”

“Okay,” Eduardo says simply, without pressing the matter. “We should probably head back down though before you fall asleep. I’m not sure I could save you if you rolled off the ledge.”

“Mmm,” Mark says noncommittally, turning around and burying his face against Eduardo’s shirt. Eduardo just sighs resignedly and lets him carry on.

“I love you, too,” he tells Eduardo eventually after a long moment, but it’s muffled by the fabric against his mouth.

Eduardo still manages to understand him anyway. “That’s really all I need,” he says, bending over and pressing a light kiss to the back of Mark’s ear.

For the first time in a while, Mark thinks they’ll be all right.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TSN Big Bang
> 
> [Art](http://branquignole.livejournal.com/53821.html) by[ Branquignole](http://branquignole.livejournal.com/)
> 
> [Art](http://serenatechair.livejournal.com/23339.html) by[ Serenatechair](http://serenatechair.livejournal.com/)
> 
> Betaed by [t0urmaline](http://t0urmaline.livejournal.com/)
> 
> thank you to these lovely people!


End file.
